DUSHANBE, November 14, 2013, Asia-Plus — The independent Dushanbe newspaper,
Imrouz
News
(News Today), has lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court of Tajikistan against rulings handed down by lower courts over Rustam Hukumov’s lawsuit.
“In the appeal lodged to the Supreme Court on November 13, we ask to reverse the rulings handed down by lower courts and review the case,” the
Imrouz News
editor-in-chief Nazir Nusrat told Asia-Plus in an interview.
We will recall that a court in Dushanbe’s district on February 25 ordered
Imrouz News
to pay 50,000 somoni (US$10,500) in damages in a libel case filed by Rustam Hukumov. The court also ordered the newspaper to publicly apologize to the plaintiff.
The Dushanbe city court upheld the Ismoili Somoni district court’s verdict on June 10, 2013; therefore, the newspaper has decided to lodge an appeal to the appeals court of Tajikistan’s Supreme Court.
Rustam Hukumov, son of the head of Tajik Railways (Tajik state rail company) Amonullo Hukumov, filed the lawsuit against
Imrouz News
on January 29, asking for 50,000 somoni as compensation of moral damage that was allegedly caused by an article published by the newspaper.
The case stems from an article “Hukumov and Bakiyev Become Headache for Their Fathers” that was published in the newspaper in October 2012. The article was about detention of the sons of Amonullo Hukumov and ex-Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev by law enforcement authorities of other countries. The article questioned the reasons behind the plaintiff”s release from a Russian jail in December 2001. The newspaper also alleged that Rustam Hukumov”s case resulted in diplomatic tensions between Russia and Tajikistan.
Russian authorities arrested Rustam Hukumov in June 2008 on charges of drug trafficking and sentenced him to nine and a half years in jail in September 2010. However a year later, in December 2011, Hukumov was acquitted on appeal and released. According to some Russian media outlets, Russian authorities freed Hukumov from jail in exchange for two Russian pilots being released from a Tajik prison. The pilots were jailed in March 2011 on accusations of smuggling airplane parts.
